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Making of a Film to Memorialize the Fallen

By Logan Stark July 3, 2013 5:13 pmJuly 3, 2013 5:13 pm

The year was 2010. Like so many Marines before me, I faced a nagging question: How would I react in combat? I wanted to know, and there was only one way to find out: I joined a unit heading to Afghanistan, the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, the “Darkhorse” battalion, as a scout sniper.

The battalion was headed to the Sangin district of southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, taking over from the British Royal Marines, who had suffered almost a third of their casualties in the war there. It didn’t take long to understand why.

Photo

Logan Stark was a scout sniper in Afghanistan.Credit Logan Stark

Shortly after arriving, my section leader told me that a roadside bomb had exploded under one of our vehicles, killing one of my best friends in the battalion and everyone else inside. I wanted to cry, but for some reason I couldn’t. Minutes later I heard an explosion. A local boy had been herding sheep with his father when one of the sheep stepped on an improvised explosive device. Our corpsman, a Navy medic, treated the injured boy, whose feet were hanging on by shreds of skin. The next day I saw my first double amputee.

Throughout that deployment, we filmed with cameras mounted on helmets, attached to guns and carried by hand. Then we passed around our hard drives, sharing the gunfights, explosions, roadside bombs – and memories. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my interest in filmmaking had been piqued.

When I returned from Afghanistan, I made a short film for a journalism class at Michigan State University about my friend, roommate and fellow Marine, Kevin, who was shot in the head in Sangin. The bullet skimmed the inside of his helmet, lodging in the fibers. He survived, and I felt compelled to tell his story. I filmed the piece in my basement with a case of Budweiser, a point-and-shoot camera and my GoPro video camera on a stack of pizza boxes. The film was far from professional, but the story was there. And it became the framework for my latest project, “For the 25,” a film for my advanced multimedia writing class at Michigan State.

The co-producers on the project, my fellow students Lexi Dakin and Rebecca Zantjer, asked if I would be comfortable being in the film. I didn’t want to be: it is so much easier to be the one asking the questions than the one answering them. But how could I ask my brother Marines to relive their experiences if I wasn’t willing to do so myself?

Before I left for spring break to interview my friends, my professor, Dr. Bump Halbritter, pulled me aside after class.

“I want you to come to grips with what you are about to do, Logan,” he said. “You have something here, but you have to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. What is it that you hope to get out of all this?”

I didn’t know how to answer then, but it wasn’t long before I found out.

When I sat down to interview a fellow scout sniper, Matt Smith, I could tell he was nervous. Having a camera in the room changes things between people. But after about an hour he started to get comfortable. I asked him a question I thought would yield a happy response. “What was it like coming home?”

His faced changed and he began to cry. I was shocked.

“My dad walked up to me and handed me a beer, ‘Welcome home, son’ ” Matt said. “That’s all I have to say about that.”

I didn’t have a problem crying with him.

After the interview I felt drained. Yet I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake wondering what I was doing. I remembered what my professor had said. Suddenly I felt compelled to write. I sat on Matt’s porch overlooking the Chicago skyline, chain-smoking cigarettes and scribbling in my notebook. As the sun came up I had come to peace with what I was doing. That morning, before a single frame of the film was edited, I knew that what I had just written was the ending of the film.

No matter how hard it is for us still walking this earth to relive the memories and the pain from Afghanistan, we owe it to the men who came home in flag-covered coffins to keep their memories alive.

The making of the film was an exploration into opening up and sharing what we had gone through. Is it hard to admit that I have post-traumatic stress disorder? Yeah. But now I don’t have to worry about dealing with the topic on my own anymore. I know that there are others out there like me, bottling everything up, waiting to burst. Well, brothers, you’re not alone. P.T.S.D. is not a burden to bear alone; the film is proof of that.

I included footage from our deployment in Sangin in “For the 25,” memorializing the brothers we lost in combat. And it has had an impact. “For the 25” has been shown in P.T.S.D. clinics around the country. Since being uploaded to YouTube in May, it has been viewed over 28,000 times. I was asked to speak at a Sept. 11th ceremony in Kalamazoo. The film seems to be helping people understand what veterans go through.

The experience of making the film was cathartic for me, as well. All the bad things that happened in Afghanistan will stay with me forever. But there is something else that will linger as well: the powerful brotherhood among the men who had also chosen to embrace the warrior ethos.

My girlfriend’s father (also a former Marine) summed it up best: “When you meet your high school friends, you believe that they will be your friends for the rest of your life, and then you meet your college friends and believe the same. But then you meet your Marine friends and you know with certainty that they will be your family for the rest of your life.”

Logan Stark served on active duty in the Marine Corps from 2007-11. He completed three tours overseas, including one to Afghanistan with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment as a scout sniper. Currently he is a senior at Michigan State University in the professional writing program. Follow him on Twitter.

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